New Web site aims to help Utah students get a foot in the door

University of Utah finance major Andy Moffitt is an intern at First Western Advisors in Salt Lake City, where his work includes researching investments for customers’ portfolios. The work enables the sophomore to earn college credit, gain valuable experience and possibly land a full-time job after graduation.

By Kathy Gurchiek
The Salt Lake Tribune

Moffitt had been working part time at Western Advisors when he learned about the semester-long internship through his employer, but a Web site initiated by the Utah Valley Economic Development Association with $16,000 from the Utah Department of Workforce Services could increase the likelihood more students will learn about such opportunities.

Launched Friday, http://www.utahintern.org is a free listing of college internships with Utah businesses. Its challenge now is to find additional funding to solicit businesses to post internships.

The Web site started humbly with only two postings, but hopes to list 1,500 new internships over the next three years.

The aim is to promote Utah’s economic growth by creating a deeper pool of skilled employees businesses can tap after graduation, and provide more in-state learning opportunities for students, said David Martin, a Brigham Young University student working on the site.

The U. of U., BYU, Utah State University, Westminster College, Dixie College, College of Eastern Utah, Utah State University, Southern Utah University and Utah Valley State College see the site as another resource students can use.

Internships are a viable way for businesses to identify potential new hires, said Stan Inman, U. of U. director of career services.

However, wWhen internships take students out of state, they often remain in the regions where they interned and developed job contacts, utahintern.org’s Martin said.

Providing more internships and spreading the word about them could be key to keeping that talent in Utah.

Not all companies are sold on internships, though, said Jan Simon, human resource manager for Quantum Design in San Diego. Simon wrote a paper on the topic for the Society for Human Resource Management in Virginia.

"I see people backing off of [internships] an awful lot," in part because of inexperience working with them, she said. "They haven’t thought it through that [by using interns] I’m training my next employee," Simon said. Quantum Design, which manufactures scientific laboratory equipment, seeks out interns because it gives the company a way to expand its recruiting of bright talent.

For an internship to be valuable to employer and student, the student must be given a project or other valued work and have someone at the organization mentor them, she stressed.

"You can’t think of this as sticking somebody in the corner," Simon said.

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